Digital Album
Immediate download of 7-track album in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

Buy Now name your price ...you type in 0,00 Euros

1.Somnium I 03:44

2.Somnium II 03:41

3.Somnium III 04:00

4.Somnium IV 04:42

5.Somnium V 05:16

6.Somnium VI 03:15

7.Somnium VII 13:52

Free download album released on ParaLucid.

"Irony is the clear consciousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely teeming chaos."
(Friedrich Schlegel)

I come from the abyss of time and space.
Life is abscons. Why not art? If a question is asked with the aim of
confusing, the answer must disconcert the questioner. Each particle has
its doppelganger at the other end of the universe to which it is linked
by abscons forces. These particles act like mirror images. If one is
capable of detecting the invisible strings which connect them, they can
be brought together just by pulling those strings. Once they meet at the
mirror surface, they become one, and the energy we so far obtain from
thermo-nuclear fusion is ten times nothing in comparison to the energy
obtained from the fusion of doppelganger entities. Such is the force of
contradiction. Since the energetic strings which tie the universe
together do not only run through space, but also through time,
everything you do or think in the present is not only affecting the
future but also the past. Each time you read a book, no matter how old,
it will be written afresh and change its meaning. Each time you behold a
flower it is you who creates it and who lends it beauty. It is the
constant awareness of this creative capacity which constitutes the basis
for Spektral Magik to which the correlation of spectral colours,
musical notes, the visible objects in the solar system and the days of
the week is an essential key.
credits
released 06 September 2008
Featuring: Art Abscons, Véra W'r..H, Patricia Rubio
tags
tags: experimental acoustic ambient avantgarde eclectic electronic neofolk psychedelic Germany

After a year of silence, Luxembourgish Neofolk project ROME is back on
tour and is to release its new trilogy in November. Reflections of
Darkness met Jérôme Reuter in Brussels 17th September 2011.

“Art is not about pleasing people.“

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): Would you tell us something about your new trilogy ‘Die Aesthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit’? What are we to expect?Jérôme Reuter (Jérôme): Well,
it has three albums… (laughs) ‘Flowers from Exile’ was a very personal
record because of my family history. The family of my uncle was involved
in the civil war and subsequently forced to go and live in exile in
France; in that respect ‘Nos Chants Perdus’ was a natural sequel to it.
But during the research I did for those albums, I felt that there were
still some important things that were not yet addressed. There was this
greater underlying theme, a historical undercurrent. While doing the
research, I sensed this spirit of revolt, the joy of fighting for
freedom. I found this revolutionary spirit in Spain and then I saw the
same thing in France, so I wanted to get to the core of it, to see what
it was really about.

RoD: You have referred to your first three albums on
CMI as a trilogy, but this time you have decided to bring us all the
parts as one package. Jérôme: In a way, my
first albums (‘Nera’, ‘Confessions d’un Voleur d’Âmes’, ‘Masse, Mensch,
Material’) were a trilogy, yes. Moreover, ‘Confessions’ was recorded
before ‘Nera’ was released, so I could not get any feedback on it, so in
that respect the situation was not so different. In a way, those first
albums are also reflected in the new trilogy: The first one is a very
noisy, brutal one, mirroring the bleakness of ‘Nera’, it is like an
uproar of a revolution. People who liked ‘Nera’ will probably like the
first part of the trilogy. The second… …is the downfall. The third one
has some hope to it, it is mellower. In fact, it reminded me of
‘Masse…’. It was like going back to ‘Masse…’ and starting to move
onwards from there, but just in a different direction. It’s like
following a path that I did not choose back then. And now I am ready to
ignore all of it and the new stuff I am writing right now goes in a
completely different direction entirely. So, anyway, fans of my earlier
work will probably like the trilogy, but I have got some other things
planned that they may not like… (laughs)

RoD: Was this music born over the years or during a shorter, more intensive period?Jérôme: Both,
actually. I think I had something like one third of the material ready
before I started working on it. The first part was pretty much done
already by the time I walked into the studio. But the idea of this
trilogy has been in my head ever since 2008. Then I wanted it to be like
a total audio book, with no actual songs on it, just a collage and
spoken words. The longer intros and the excessive German spoken word
parts are reminiscent of that.

RoD: You say you only used analogue equipment for the
trilogy. What’s the thought behind this? Is it some kind of a dogma for
music, like the one Lars von Trier and his colleagues announced for
movies?Jérôme: There’s a lot of pressure that
you put on yourself, and a lot of the time that keeps it from being a
really great record. For the music, it was more important to go into a
“Do It Yourself” kind of spirit. All that mattered were the songs
themselves. It wasn’t planned beforehand, though: I moved out of Germany
and needed a new studio and called up a guy with whom I worked in
Brussels when I was in a punk band fifteen years ago. He said he had
moved to the countryside and had analogue equipment there. There was
nothing there, a calm and quiet place. It was easy to keep going once
you got the ball rolling, since there was nowhere to go to. (laughs)

Going back to your question, I must say that ‘Nos Chants Perdus’ was
kind of overproduced. You know, you want every record to be the best you
have ever done and always sound better than the previous one. ‘Nera’
was recorded in seven days. ‘Nos Chants Perdus’ took about seventy. It
ruined me financially, but we brought it to a level where it could
compete with the high end productions. But it just doesn’t make sense
for us to try to compete with those kind of productions, because were
not on those kind of budgets and we are subject to the consequences of
people stealing music. I simply couldn’t afford to do this in the same
way as ‘Nos Chants Perdus’, but at the same time I didn’t want to,
artistically speaking. I also like the kind of working process that
analogue technique forces upon you. I recorded two or three songs to try
it and I liked the sound and the process: You record and that is it.
You can’t go back all the time. It is very spontaneous. With digital
recordings, there was extensive post-production. The work never stops.
Now you have five hours to finish the song and there is no going back.
So it was all handmade and hardly produced. I still use a lot of samples
but they are kind of minimal, too.

RoD: You announced a campaign for a living room tour in Europe and US. Where did the idea come from?Jérôme: We’ve
noticed that on our concerts there are a lot of people from hundreds of
miles away. They’re spending hundreds of euros on tickets, hotel bills
and sometimes even flights for just one show. So I thought why not just
get a couple of friends together who are willing to spend the same
amount to have us pay in their living room. That is the idea. We’re
going to do it in the US and we are definitely going to do it at some
point in Europe, but I don’t know when. It simply is a lot of money to
get the band moving.

“Beware of words and their power to charm”

RoD:
I don’t know if you have any formal background in history, philosophy
or literature, but it appears you’ve studied them for the trilogy. Press
release reads almost like an essay - or a manifesto. Jérôme: I
studied German and English literature at university, so I did learn how
to do research during that - that’s what it’s all about. I like doing
that before I start a project. It’s like doing a film: before you start
to shoot you have to write a script, think about the cast and so on.
There definitely is kind of preproduction process going on here, for
instance researching what sort of sounds to use. It takes a lot of time.

RoD: You are a renown multi linguist. Do you actually still have one language that you consider as your mother tongue?Jérôme: I
clearly do have Luxemburgish as my mother tongue. I constantly switch
languages, but as long as you keep dreaming in your mother tongue, it is
ok, I guess. (laughs)

RoD: You mix
strikingly many languages in your albums. What is the purpose of it? Is
it that concepts can never be quite translated to another language? Jérôme: Exactly
that. I‘ve had an album with a Spanish focus and one with French focus
and now most of the new trilogy is in German. All the things I read, all
the voices I heard… everything that stuck with me while working on the
trilogy was in German. I didn’t want to translate it because that was
the way it was supposed to be and sounded most natural. I was inspired
by the trilogy ‘The Aesthetics of Resistance’ by Peter Weiss. It is such
an important book, but it has been sold out for years. When I finally
got it in my hands by chance, I was amazed by the form of it. Every book
has like seven hundred pages, every few hundred pages there is maybe a
chapter number if you are lucky… Millions of words, how was I ever going
to read it? I really liked that!

RoD: So you clearly aren’t going to give your listeners an easy time?Jérôme: Well,
it was planned to be much worse. (laughs) But it’s not actually a very
difficult album for the most parts, except for those very long German
passages. I tried to translate it but it just didn’t sound right. There
was no way around it.

RoD: So in a way the listeners are forced to do their own research?Jérôme: In a way, yes… Or maybe I‘m just lazy. (laughs)

“I renounce you…”

RoD:
I perceive Luxembourg as a melting pot for cultures, where nearly
everyone has roots somewhere else. Besides Luxembourg, I understand that
you've been living at least in Germany, UK and Belgium. Your songs also
appear to reflect some kind of alienation, yet simultaneously they
reflect attachment. Jérôme: I don’t believe in
nations, nation states, anything like that. If anything, I identify
myself as a European. I have roots in different countries. I feel like
home everywhere in Europe. This doesn’t mean I would be advocating for
the EU the way it is today or anything. That’s not what it’s about; it’s
all about the cultural heritage. Also, every country is different and
that’s what I like about it.

RoD: Would you say there’s an ideology behind ROME? Jérôme: No.
If there was, it would be a different one every week. This trilogy is
the most political thing I’ve ever done. It reflects some early streams
of the 20th century left-wing movements and thoughts – I share some of
the views and I’ve always been outspoken about not liking the
right-wing, but I don’t want ROME to be seen as a political project.
It’s again like a movie you make, a subject you chose, a theme you
decided to follow for a production. And in my private life, I’m not that
much of a political person. I haven’t really found anything ideological
that I’d put myself to service to.

RoD: We are lucky to live in a society where we have freedom. So what’s the fight we should be fighting in today’s world?Jérôme: These
records reflect specific times in history, specific fights one could
justify. I’m not advocating that people should go to the streets and
burn a bank or something, although there’s not that much to be said
against doing that… (laughs) Of course one could have the same kind of
fight today, but I‘m not going to tell people what’s the good fight.
That’s up to people, really. I’m trying to include as many views as
possible. The records are more about establishing characters. They may
be very strong, but have their flaws and weaknesses, have failures, be
traitors… There is beauty and pride and also in being frail.

So while it’s not about a specific fight, it’s inevitable that things
are not going to stay like this forever. It’s a natural fact that it
can’t go on. We are living in a corner of a world that’s eating
everybody else’s food. Perhaps we’ll be fine for another fifty years,
but there will be a lot of people suffering for our well-being. All this
will be gone soon. It’s sad, but unavoidable. We don’t know what’s
going to follow, but it definitely will not be the same again. I’m not
going to say it would be bad, just different. It will be a lot worse at
the start but maybe something good will come out of it… There will
always be an end in everything. Do not get accustomed to things. Keep
yourself busy, keep moving.

RoD: I
recently stumbled across a little Nazi Goth boy who was quoting your
lyrics. I found it rather surprising because if anything, I personally
would've seen ROME as anti-war and anti-dictator of any kind, and
definitely not one of far-right ideals. Jérôme: People
are stupid, you know. (laughs) Yes, you can write that down, everybody
knows that. It’s not like I have an anti-right wing badge on the album
covers, but if you read the lyrics, it should be quite clear. Sometimes
you see people and are like, “whatta…” Maybe they should go and read a
book or something. But everyone’s got the right to be interested in
whatever they want. If someone really has a thing for that kind of
things, they’ll find what they want from any kind of music. A lot of
bands glorify war, and there is a lot of war in ROME, but I don’t
portray it as something glorious and also I don’t see the point of
singing about flowers…

RoD: Matt Howden from Sieben openly speaks against
Nazist and racist ideas among Neofolk music fans. Do you have any
thoughts on the alleged connection between neo-Nazism and Neofolk? Jérôme: It’s
revolting to see ROME to see linked to right-wing bands. There’s these
bands that are openly or by causative factors linked to those ideals.
Many artists state they aren’t political, but at the same time they’re
dealing with very political issues. I’ve always been very clear that we
aren’t right-wing and that we’re on the left side of things, even though
we’re not a left-wing band as such. I do not want ROME to be a
political band. But Nazis are scum, end of story.

RoD:
Do you actually even perceive ROME as a Neofolk project? I can see this
label arising from your CMI years, but lately, it has appeared somewhat
unfitting: You seem to draw more from Leonard Cohen than a
stereotypical Neofolk ensemble.Jérôme: A year
ago I’d have said to hell with Neofolk, ROME is not Neofolk. (laughs)
Well, the last two albums weren’t Neofolk, but I started out sounding
partially like some of the Neofolk bands, so I don’t mind being labelled
as one and I’m used to that. Besides, stylistically, Neofolk is pretty
difficult to describe anyway. But there’s more to ROME than just Neofolk
and that’s what I like about it. That’s what people like about it.
Rock’n’Roll, industrial, singer-songwriter, punk, all kinds of weird
dark stuff… And I don’t really know how to label myself, and I don’t
really care. For me, it’s just music.

“Compromise - is not possible!”

RoD:
You’ve mentioned that you can get along with very little money. Is that
simply out of necessity to be able to live on your music? Jérôme: Well,
yes, as a musician you kind of make that choice anyway before you
start. Buying expensive cars has always been out of the question –
certainly with the kind of music I do. Making music doesn’t generate a
lot of money, and in recent years the global record sales have dropped
to such an awful degree that all musicians, labels and fanzines suffer
from the consequences of people stealing music. It’s generally played
down, either by the bands and labels to keep their guard up and to keep
up appearances, or by people who just go “oh, well, you can still play
live and make money there”, and “downloading gets you more fans” and
shit like that.

A record label invests tons of money
into making a product and promoting it. Now we just took the customer
out of the equation. The math is simple, if not enough people buy it,
there won’t be a next record, because there are more fun ways to burn
money for everybody involved. And playing live is hard if you want to
make a living with it, because everybody has to tour now, so the fees
are going down because of the competition. A lot of labels don’t have
enough money to pay for advertising in the fanzines, so the fanzines
don’t get any money anymore either. So it’s really tough right now. A
lot of the underground culture is dying because of that. I don’t care if
the major players struggle, they have been asking for it ever since
they started, but it’s the small companies, the small idealists who find
it harder by the day to get by. It is stuff like that people really
don’t think about when they are stealing our work.

We
aren’t pop stars who can find other ways to make money – I can’t release
some stupid perfume or sneakers or whatever. And I don’t have another
job waiting somewhere. At least, there’s still a lot of people out there
who support the artists by buying merchandise and purchasing the
albums. There’s – at the moment – still enough of those individuals who
keep this going and make it possible for me to release another album.
So, yes, living on very little money is a necessity more than a choice. I
chose to become a musician, so I chose not to have a lot of bling
bling. But on the other hand I don’t care a bit about the bling. I don’t
even have a TV.

RoD: I keep repeating myself, but you’ve been amazingly
productive. Do you have other interests in life that would have nothing
to do with music?Jérôme: I have a part in my
life that is private and sacred, but pretty much everything else is
ROME. As you can see, all my friends are in the band. Everything I like,
people I meet, theatre, books I read, history, all that is combined in
ROME.

RoD: Where are you planning to go
from here? I’m not expecting to you to tell the details, I know you
won’t. But do you know already yourself?Jérôme: Before
it’s done I can’t really speak about it, also because you never know
what it’s really going be like in the end. Maybe you run into something
you didn’t expect and venture that direction. I talked to a friend about
‘Flowers From Exile’ before it was released. I told him about this
small mellow thing and by the time it was out and he heard it, it had
turned out into this grand rock kind of thing. Every album is different.
The next will be even more different. (laughs) I don’t want to reveal
anything. All I can say is that I have a completely different approach
to songwriting right now. My intention is to keep fresh. You easily get
stuck recording the same album again and again. Most artists think they
reached whatever they were striving for once they have found their
sound. I don’t believe in that. Once you find your sound, change it! Art
is not about pleasing people.

Titles are excerpts of ROME’s lyrics. ‘Die Aesthetik Der
Herrschaftsfreiheit’ is out on Trisol 11th November 2011 and on sale via
Infrarot. Pictures by Achim Webel (www.nightshadow-photoart.de)